Omri Efraim

FW: Jan. 6, 2013

A new report says one in every five children in Israel has suffered from some kind of sexual abuse.

According to the annual report released by the Israel National Council for the Child (NCC) on Sunday, in addition to the sexual abuse faced by the children, one in every three Israeli kids also lives in poverty.

The report also revealed that over the last thirty years, the number of poor kids in Israel has grown four-fold.

The picture is even grimmer for Arab children with nearly 68 percent of them living in poverty compared to nearly 23 percent of Jewish children.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has released a response to the report, saying that neglecting children today is a mistake "we will pay for in the future."

On December 18, a report showed that more than 1,700,000 Israelis are living below the poverty line.

According to the official data of Israel’s annual poverty report published by the National Insurance Institute (NII) and the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), 439,500 families and 817,200 children, or 33 percent of minors in the country, lived below the poverty line in 2012.

High taxes and low salaries have had adverse effects on the lives of Israelis, specifically the middle class, in recent years.

Discontented Israelis almost regularly take to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest against Tel Aviv’s economic plans and the painful austerity measures, which have raised taxes and cut welfare benefits.